The applicant claims as a filing date, the date on which this application was received by the United States Patent Office. There are no co-pending related applications filed by the applicant as of the date of filing of this application.
1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to an instrument for computing proportions or fractions of an originally printed, published or displayed recipe to a fraction of the fixed number of servings indicated by the recipe.
2. Background
In 1936 Lane et al. received U.S. Pat. No. 2,098,394 for a recipe file which was an improved combination of a container, data and index cards useful in the assembly and examination of cooking recipes. Pivotally mounted on an index card by an eyelet was an information disc divided into a series of equal spaces around the periphery to coincide with an opening cut in the top edge of the index card. In 1937, Kohlenberger in U.S. Pat. No. 2,111,268 invented a further improvement in the art of cooking by providing a novel means by which the exact time for cooking various vegetables and the like may be ascertained by a rotatably moving disc with an indicator pointing the vegetable desired. In 1940 Walmsley was issued U.S. Pat. No. 2,190,814 for a reference cabinet which accurately specified the kind and amounts of ingredients for a desired xe2x80x9csizexe2x80x9d as a measure or weight of a batch or mixture, covering a complete variety of baking formulas and adapted specifically for use in a shop routine. In 1939 Herzog received U.S. Pat. No. 2,150,442 for a calorie counting pivoting wheel or calculator permitting the ready addition of the number of calories contained in combinations of foods in any variety.
In 1947 Torrence received U.S. Pat. No. 2,420,762 for wheeled pivoting device with discs arranged one above the other to indicate the value of vitamins and minerals in certain types of foods. Then, in 1960 Pennington received U.S. Pat. No. 2,956,358 for pivoting wheeled disc device for menu selection wherein weight is given to the chemistry of the foods selected and wherein the use of seasonal foods at the wrong time of year is avoided using the device. A similar nutrition indicating device was described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,977,106 in 1976 where a flat circular chart with a flat wheel rotatably pivoted at each side of the chart wherein foods are colored coded on the chart and the relative quantities of food items to provides specific calories or nutrients is shown. A related device of similar construction was patented in 1977 in U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,477 which issued to Hungerford. The device is a hand held weight control calculator which allows an individual to quickly and accurately determined the daily maximum food calories allowed for maintaining, gaining, or losing weight.